Akhalkalaki uezd
Akhalkalaki Uyezd
Ахалкалакский уезд | |
|---|---|
 Location in the Tiflis Governorate | |
| Land | Russian Empire |
| Governorate | Tiflis |
| Viceroyalty | Caucasus |
| Established | 1874 |
| Abolished | 1930 |
| Seat | Akhalkalaki |
| Uchastoks | Baralet, and Bogdanov |
| Area | |
| • Total | 2,739 km2 (1,058 sq mi) |
| Population (1916) | |
| • Total | 107,173 |
| • Density | 39/km2 (100/sq mi) |
The Akhalkalaki Uyezd (Russian: Ахалкалакский уезд; Georgian: ახალქალაქის მაზრა; Armenian: Ախալքալաքի գավառ) was an uezd (county) of the Tiflis Governorate of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, and then of Democratic Republic of Georgia, with its administrative center in Akhalkalaki.[1][2] The uyezd bordered the Gori Uyezd to the north, the Borchaly Uyezd to the east, the Alexandropol Uezd of the Erivan Governorate and the Kars and Ardahan okrugs of the Kars Oblast to the south, and the Akhaltsikhe Uyezd to the west. The area of the uyezd roughly corresponded to the contemporary Samtskhe-Javakheti region of Georgia.
History
The territory of the Akhalkalaki Uyezd, then part of the Akhaltsikhe Uyezd, entered into the Kutais Governorate of the Russian Empire following the Russo-Turkish War of 1828. By 1874, the Akhkalaki Uyezd was detached from the hitherto larger Akhaltsikhe Uyezd, becoming a constituent county of the Tiflis Governorate.
Following the Russian Revolution, the Akhalkalaki Uyezd was incorporated into the short-lived Democratic Republic of Georgia, however, was strongly strongly disputed with Democratic Republic of Armenia which also claimed the county on the grounds of history and ethnography
Hovannisian, a notable historian on the topic of the interwar republic of Armenia writes about the fate of the more than eighty-thousand Armenians of the Akhalkalaki Uyezd:[3]
Thirty thousand had perished as the result of the Turkish occupation, and those who survived were starving. Some mothers attempted to save their daughters by offering them as wives to Georgian militiamen and soldiers ... hundreds of women and children were pressed into servitude in the adjacent Muslim districts. All roads leading away from Akhalkalak were strewn with the bodies of fleeing Armenians. In September ... of the more than 80,000 Armenians in the county at the beginning of 1918, only 40,000 were left and that these were rapidly succumbing to famine, foreign marriages, concubinage, or to even worse fates. Although the Tiflis government regarded Akhalkalak as an integral part of the Republic of Georgia ... it did nothing to relieve the agony.
Lord Curzon during the Paris Peace Conference accessed the ethnographic situation in the southwestern uezds of the Tiflis Governorate:[4][5]
Along the line marking the proposed northeastern boundary of Armenia, the counties of Akhalkalaki and Akhaltsikhe fell on the Georgian side, even though, it was stated, they were populated primarily by the Armenian descendants of refugees from Turkey: “On the grounds of nationality, therefore, these districts ought to belong to Armenia, but they command the heart of Georgia strategically, and on the whole it would seem equitable to assign them to Georgia, and give their Armenian inhabitants the option of emigration into the wide territories assigned to the Armenians towards the south-west.”
Administrative divisions
The uchastoks (sub-counties) of the Akhalkalaki Uyezd were:[6]
- Baralet (Баралетский участок)
- Bogdanov (Богдановский участок)
Demographics
Caucasian Calendar of 1917
The 1917 Caucasian Calendar which produced statistics of 1916 indicates 107,173 residents in the Akhalkalaki Uyezd, including 56,140 men and 51,033 women, 106,307 of whom were the permanent population, and 866 were temporary residents:[7]
| Nationality | Zentrum | Rural | TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armenians | 6,151 | 76,624 | 82,775 | 77.2% |
| Georgians | 265 | 10,039 | 10,304 | 9.6% |
| Russians | 429 | 7,113 | 7,542 | 7.0% |
| Azerbaijanis | 0 | 5,431 | 5,431 | 5.1% |
| Kurds | 0 | 904 | 904 | 0.8% |
| Jews | 204 | 0 | 204 | 0.2% |
| TOTAL | 7,055 | 100,118 | 107,173 | 100.0% |
See also
References
- ^ Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedia: Tiflis Governorate (in Russian)
- ^ Tsutsiev, Arthur (2014), Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus, New Haven and London, p. 164, ISBN 978-0-300-15308-8, OCLC 884858065, retrieved 2021-12-25
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971–1996). The Republic of Armenia. Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 151–152. ISBN 0-520-01805-2. OCLC 238471.
- ^ Britain, Cab 27/37, E.C. 2525.
- ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1971–1996). The Republic of Armenia. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 267. ISBN 0-520-01805-2. OCLC 238471.
- ^ Кавказский календарь .... на 1913 год (in Russian). Tiflis: Office of the Viceroy of the Caucasus. 1913. pp. 271–317.
- ^ Кавказский календарь .... на 1917 год (in Russian). Tiflis: Office of the Viceroy of the Caucasus. 1917. pp. 363–366.
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